An Officer of the Hungarian Life Guards
Meynike (fl. Dresden and St Petersburg)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1700 - 1799
Materials
Pastel on paper
Measurements
457 x 356 mm (18 x 14 in)
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 205764
Summary
Pastel on paper, An Officer of the Hungarian Life Guards, seen from front and back, by Meynike, (fl. Dresden and St Petersburg). C18. Inscribed on reverse of the blue backing paper with artist's name - Meynike pinx. Scarlet uniform with a tiger skin pelisse, yellow boots and tall fur head-dress with a heron's plume. The Corps was founded by Maria Theresa and disbanded in 1918. Meynike is described by Thieme-Becker as a miniature painter operating in Dresden and St Petersburg. Also stuck on the backing paper, the typescript of a footnote about hussars from Sach. Sitwell's Valse des Fleurs (1941), and an added date in biro - 1940. Curiously, in the aborted Wimpole sale of 7 Aug 1880, lot 87 - was it really included in the en bloc sale, and bought subsequently - by chance or by design - by Capt Bambridge, with whose taste and interest it perfectly aligns? or did it remain by accident in the house, in an upper room or drawer, to be given an honoured place in their collection? Marked in pencil bottom right.
Provenance
Part of the Bambridge Collection. The hall and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust in 1976 by Mrs Elsie Bambridge (1896-1976)
Makers and roles
Meynike (fl. Dresden and St Petersburg), artist